Joi Brooks: Email Marketing

Summary

Podcast Summary: The VoiceOver Insider Podcast

Episode: Joi Brooks: Email Marketing
Hosts: Julie Williams & Gary MacFadden
Guest: Joi Brooks (Email and Coffee)
Date: June 8, 2023

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the essentials of email marketing for voiceover professionals. Julie Williams and Gary MacFadden interview Joi Brooks, an email marketing expert with a career dating back to before Y2K. The discussion centers on practical strategies, best practices for engaging voiceover prospects, understanding email metrics, and demystifying concepts like funnels and automations. Joi offers actionable advice for both beginners and experienced marketers aiming to build authentic connections and drive business growth through email.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Strategic Foundations of Email Marketing

• Define Your Purpose:
  Joi stresses the importance of intentionality before sending any email. Know what you want your audience to do—whether that's learning about you, building trust, or taking a direct action.

• Sustainability:
  Make sure your email strategy is maintainable over the long term, not something you do intensively for only a month.

  “You’ve got to sit down and say, I want to touch my contacts X times a month. I want to show them who I am. It’s about me. I’m trying to get them to trust me, to know me, to convert into a sale.”
  — Joi Brooks (01:46)

2. Building Trust & Familiarity

• Consistency and Trust:
  The key to converting prospects is first getting them to know and trust you.

• Repetition:
  It’s okay if your primary aim is just for people to become familiar with you.

  “It’s not only to get to know me, like who I am, but to trust me. Because you work with people and you give money to somebody who you trust.”
  — Joi Brooks (02:53)

3. Getting Noticed in Crowded Inboxes

• Brand Alignment:
  Your “from” name and email address should be recognizable and unique to you or your brand, especially if you’re a solopreneur or representing a small business. Avoid generic addresses like “no-reply” or “support” unless it’s appropriate for your business size and context.

• Separating Personal and Professional:
  Create a separate professional email for campaigns; don’t use your personal one.

  “The envelope would be the from address … Needs to be something that people will recognize.”
  — Joi Brooks (04:18)

4. Subject Lines and Open Rates

• Be Honest and Direct:
  Avoid clickbait. The subject line should transparently state what’s inside.

• Emojis? Maybe:
  Use sparingly, depending on your audience. Make it fun only if appropriate.

• Metrics Aren’t Perfect:
  Open rates are tracked via a tiny pixel, but these numbers can be artificially inflated (e.g., by email server security scans and bots). Don’t judge success solely by open rates.

  “Don’t play clickbait with them… That is not—that’s the opposite of trust.”
  — Joi Brooks (08:25)

  “It’s not 100% true [that open rate reflects subject line effectiveness]... That element in your email that measures the open is a very small pixel image... there may be an intermediary open and click to see who’s sending this email … and you’ve got a mess of metrics.”
  — Joi Brooks (09:47)

5. Funnels & Automations Explained

• Every Prospect Is on a Journey:
  Joi reframes the concept of a funnel as a customer journey from discovery to conversion.

• Progressive Disclosure:
  Collect information on your contact over time with strategic messaging.

• Segmentation:
  Use behaviors (clicks, sign-ups, survey responses) to segment contacts and provide more relevant content.

• Automations:
  triggered series of emails based on how contacts interact with your previous messages. Make it as simple as possible at first to avoid burnout.

  “It’s not so much a funnel and it’s not so much an automation as it is, you’ve got… Every customer, client prospect is on a journey. That journey is to discover you and then to convert eventually.”
  — Joi Brooks (16:07)

  “It’s like a flowchart… The automation can be branched, rejoined… but in the beginning, you want to make it simple because… sustainable. If you make your email marketing too difficult… you’re never going to complete it.”
  — Joi Brooks (18:59)

6. The Value Exchange

• Respect the Subscriber:
  When someone gives you their email, they expect something of value in return—meet this expectation!

• Ongoing Engagement:
  Offer resources, discounts, or invitations to events to keep your emails worthwhile.

  “Somebody gives you their email address, it’s not for free. They’re giving it to you because they expect something from you. You had better give it to them.”
  — Joi Brooks (20:09)

7. Realities of Email Marketing

• It’s Not Magic:
  Email marketing takes commitment and thoughtful planning; it’s not an instant fix.

  “Email marketing is difficult. If you think somebody has told you that it’s a miraculous product, don’t believe them. It’s work, it pays.”
  — Joi Brooks (21:16)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I call myself two things. An email marketing nerd or a unicorn. Both.”
  — Joi Brooks (01:04)
• “Don’t play clickbait with them… That is not—that’s the opposite of trust.”
  — Joi Brooks (08:25)
• “You just need to sit down, hunker down, and make it happen and make it sustainable.”
  — Joi Brooks (21:16)

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|----------------------------------------------| | 01:04 | Joi Brooks introduces herself | | 01:46 | The purpose and framework of email marketing | | 02:53 | Trust as a foundation for conversion | | 04:18 | Branding and the “from” address | | 08:25 | How to write effective subject lines | | 09:47 | Why open rates can be misleading | | 16:07 | Definition and rethinking of funnels | | 18:59 | Automations as flowcharts; keeping it simple | | 20:09 | The value exchange in email marketing | | 21:16 | The reality and sustainability of email |

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Summary Takeaways

• Email marketing works best when it’s intentional, trust-building, and tailored to your prospects’ journey.
• Stay honest and consistent in your branding and messaging.
• Don’t get defeated by imperfect metrics—look at the bigger picture and focus on sustainable, value-driven efforts.
• Automations and funnels can save time and drive engagement, but start simple and scale only as you’re able.
• Value is key: Always deliver something your subscribers care about.

Contact Joi Brooks at Email and Coffee (details in podcast description) for further help with your email marketing strategies.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Voiceover Insider podcast where we discuss the things that can help you build your voiceover momentum. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Gary McFadden, the podcast co host, along with Julie Williams. Julie, what's the topic of the podcast today?

[B]

Now we've got a treat. Today we're going to talk all about email marketing. And to help us along with that, we've got Joy Brooks of Coffee and Email. No, email and coffee to me. I get my coffee before email, but, you know, they kind of go together real well. Joy from Email and Coffee has been an expert in, in email marketing since, believe it or not, some of you probably weren't even born back then, before Y2K. So it was like late 90s when, when most of us didn't even really know what email was. Hardly. She was becoming an expert at it. So she's going to give us some real good tips today. So, Joy, thank you so much with us.

[C]

Thank you for having me. I call myself two things. An email marketing nerd or a unicorn. Both. And the unicorn is because when it comes to email marketing, there's pretty much nothing I can't do within it.

[B]

Wow, that's, that's really good because I've got a lot of questions for you today. I know that, like, when you're, when you're writing an email and I know you're not talking about content today, but like we, we think about, okay, what is the purpose of this email? Am I selling in this email or am I trying to get them to book a sales call? So what about strategy for your email campaign in general? The structure, the framework, how do you, how do you do the strategy?

[C]

It's really important to do that. Before you do you start doing your email, you really need to know what you're going to be distributing, what you're going to be writing, whether it's sustainable. Oh, I could do it for a month. Did you think you could do it for more than a month? Because you're in it for the, you know, it's a keeper. So you've got to think of what it is you want, your audience, your contacts, the other people who are getting the email. To do that sort of becomes your pathway to, to thinking, what's the content? I want to make them do X. So how do you do that? Another email. If you don't want to make them do anything, which is the call to action, you just want them to read an article, enjoy themselves, that's fine too. But you've got to sit down and Say I want to touch my contacts X times a month. I want to show them who I am. It's about me. I'm trying to get them to trust me, to know me, to convert into

[B]

a sale, to become familiar with me is a good enough. It's a good enough gold for the strategy.

[C]

Exactly. And that, and it's not only to get to know me like who I am, but to trust me. Because you work with people and you give money to somebody who you trust.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So you want them to begin to know who you are and trust who you are so that the conversion can happen. It's not going to happen if they don't understand what your product or service is or if they don't think that you're going to be there for them in the long run.

[B]

So is email a good way? Like, let's say we've got somebody new and we want to get their attention and we know everybody wants to get their attention. So it's like, it's like we're Where's Waldo without the shirt, you know, and they have to find us, you know what I mean? So how do we get their attention to open our email when they're getting 100 others from, in our instance, voiceover talents who are looking for someone to hire them?

[C]

That is the biggest question and that's the one that you've got to sit tight with and you've got to figure out what am I going to do here? What is unique about me, what's going to appeal to people, what's, how am I going to make it so that they are aware of my brand? They see coming in the inbox, they're curious about what's going on, they click, they open, they like, they follow through in the call to action and they do the same thing over time. The first thing that, that you need to do is get your brand aligned. That what I call the envelope. Imagine, stop being a marketer for half a second and just wake up, have a cup of coffee, open up your computer, go into your email, go into your inbox, think about what you're doing. All right, so you've got, right now, I've looked at my inbox a number of times. I have 160 emails in my inbox. So I'm going to go through them and what am I going to look at? I'm going to look at the name, I'm going to look at the brand that it's coming from, then I'm going to look perhaps at the subject line and then look at the email. So align your content. The envelope would be the from address, which is an email address. The friendly from address, which is a friendly name. It can be your name or it could be the brand name. Needs to be something that people will recognize. If your name is Bob Smith and you represent a large company, I would not go with Bob Smith. And Bob Smith can be out of a job in three weeks. And now you've got Jane Doe and you're confusing your audience. But if the brand is Kleenex, that's the name.

[B]

So what do you think about. Let's say I have voiceovers.com I'm [e-mail]. what usually comes up is Julie Williams. Okay, but what about. A lot of people do this and, and I don't really like this, but I'd like your input. [e-mail] you know, questions at contact at.

[C]

I mean, it's not that bad when you're dealing. See, there's a difference, a very large difference between B2B and B2C. Right. So commerce is commerce. And you really don't care who's sending you the Old Navy email. You just want to see what's on sale because you are in the mood to buy some shorts. Do you care who it's coming from? Do you care if it's support, ad or customer service that you don't? Because if you get the bag and you look at the style and it's not what you ordered, you're going to get back online. There's a telephone number you can call that you could send the package back. That's all taken care of. So it's not business to business. It's consumer. And it's really something we're all familiar with. You get something you don't like, guess what, you put it back in the box, you go to the post office and you send it back. And then you contact your bank and you say, cancel that. Make sure I get it back. Also you call the company. That's a different thing than I get an email from you. And you're, you're basically saying no reply at voiceover. That's horrible experience.

[B]

Exactly.

[C]

That's a horrible experience. Support at your solopreneur or a single person working and you're trying to make your name that's. It should be applicable. It can be voiceover, voiceover.com it can be your name, but it really needs to be unique and it should not be the same email address you're using personally. You need to separate the two Things can happen in the, on the promotional end that you don't want to happen in your personal inbox.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

So you do want to separate them. So maybe, you know, you can have some, you can add your middle name. You know, you could do it differently if you want it to be your actual name that you're using as the promotional email name to send the campaigns through. It's a little technical and, and it tends to go over people's heads and sometimes it causes a little bit of a roadblock. That's why I contract as a, as a support person if anybody needs to talk through it. Emailing coffee.com.

[B]

so how much weight do you put on? Like, I look at like Kohl's first and I'll delete it because I'm not going to Kohl's right now. Right. Or I might look at your name and then I'll look at the subject line to see if it's something that. How urgent it is to me if I, if I flag it for later or, or what. How important is that subject line to getting us opens?

[C]

It should be honest, should be straightforward. Don't play games with it. Yes. You want to put an emoji there, a little hand going like this. I don't know. You want to play with. Let. Make it fun if that depends on your audience. But don't go overboard. Don't go overboard. Straightforward. Let them know exactly what's going to happen when they open that email. What are they going to get? Don't play clickbait with them. Don't put something in there that's not happening in the email because they're going to learn that you, that you're fibbing. And that is not. That's the opposite of trust. So you want to be able to give them the reason to open it up. If you're doing regular events, whether it's Wednesday, webinar or if it's, you know, Friday, email, blog, whatever it is, you can set that tone for them so they know exactly what they're getting. And then they could search for it.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

Something that some of us do that not all of us do. If it's in your inbox, they may search for your name. They'll find it.

[B]

You know, I used to think that subject lines, that I could, that I needed them for an open. Right. And that I could look at the metrics and see how many opens I got and then determine how good the subject line was. But you told me that's not true.

[C]

It's not 100% true. And it's not something that you should put on your tombstone.

[B]

Why isn't it true?

[C]

Technically, there's a few things that are going on. The element in your email that measures the open is a very small pixel image. It's transparent. And when that gets opened, the server knows that the element's been served and the impact is open.

[B]

I see. Okay.

[C]

So your email is going through a number of passages. It goes from your email service provider and then it starts going literally hopping through a number of different terminals to be received, to be sent, to be open. It's, it's doing a lot of things and it's all automatic. It's all a matter of the digital workspace. You don't know how many hops it takes to get from here to there. It can be many. So as it does that and it is eventually received by the receiving server, depending on what company and what process the company has in place, there may be an intermediary open and click to see who's sending this email, where's it coming from, Is there anything in it that we should worry about? And you know, there may be words and images and links and it clicks and then it sends it if it's okay, or throws it into quarantine if it's not okay.

[B]

So that's like Gmail looking at the email. And then sometimes it tells me, be careful. You know, this could be phishing or something like that because they've checked it out first.

[C]

Not only that, but Gmail is caching your images. So it's taking all the images that are in the email and it's caching them. Okay, that's also an open.

[B]

Okay, I see. So will it be two? One because they looked at it and one because they cached it?

[C]

No, it'll be one open. It's, it's, it's pretty much done. Bing, bang, boom.

[B]

In the meantime, they can go through and they can delete the email without opening it. But I think they opened it.

[C]

It's possible, it's possible. That's not going to happen. As much as just robotic clicks usually happens business to business, but it can happen business to consumer. And what happened in the business, the business is my client will come and say to me, you know, I'm seeing ridiculous number of clicks, like 50 clicks by a person. Is that possible? They're all doing it within like two seconds. And I'm like, you've got a robot and the robot's opening it. And the robot's able to open thousands in seconds. And over and over. So literally scans the whole email and opens every link, clicks on everything, and you've got a mess of metrics. So you usually discount those people immediately. And it could be a number of people. It happens. It's discouraging. But don't give up. There's wealth of information and metrics in email marketing. You just need to understand how the whole process works.

[B]

We're talking to Joy Brooks, and we'll be right back after this to talk about something that you might know nothing about. You've heard of it, but you might not know anything about what is a funnel and how can you use it.

[D]

So I would say Julie's approach to coaching is direct and very kind. She's definitely no nonsense. But I would add that she's also never harsh or critical. In a disheartening sort of way, she quickly assessed my skill level and asked what I wanted to accomplish by working with her. She starts by teaching her proven techniques, and that builds a solid foundation. Then she tailors her coaching to build on that foundation. Coaching with Julie gave me the tools I needed to move forward with confidence, and she can do the same for you.

[E]

One of the things that Julie conveys right at the beginning, she's incredibly organized. I cannot tell you how many people I have worked with that they are very gifted, but they're not very organized. But organized appeals to me because I come from a medical background. Anyway. One of the things that she emphasized was her euphemism of the girl in the red coat, meaning you, your essence, your personality, your sound is unique. And that's what will sell in the marketplace as long as you stay true to that. And so that was certainly the case in working with Julie. And I'm hoping that if. If we have a chance to do this again in six months, that I'll just have a whole sheaf of contracts that I'll be able to show you and say, see, it really did work. But I do have faith and I do have confidence, so I'm hopeful.

[F]

Julie's coaching has helped me in my regular acting as well as my voice acting. Her techniques helped me prepare for an audition, and I got the part. I was able to quickly look at the script and figure out which words to emphasize and how to add music to my phrasing. And her training has really been a game changer for me.

[G]

Hi there. I'm Glenn Moore, and I've been working in voiceover for many, many years. Hey, I just wanted to take a minute to say that if you are looking for a Voiceover coach to help you gain a better skill. Maybe you're just getting started in the industry or maybe you've been at this for a while. I highly recommend Julie Williams as a coach. Either way, she's a pro. She's been working in VO for many, many years as a talent and coach. And I studied with Julie a few years ago and really learned a lot from her, from the way she helps you approach the copy, to marking it up in just the right places and on just the right words for the right emphasis and effect, to just being a good listener and coaching you not only through the mechanics of vo, but also the marketing and understanding the business more to help you deal with the reality of what it takes to succeed. Julie's coached established pros to beginners, and she can help you elevate your skills or train to become ready for that first demo. I wish you the best in your VO career. And if you're looking for a professional VO coach to help you succeed, contact Julie to get started today.

[B]

Welcome back. We're talking to Joy Brooks, all about email marketing. And for the longest time, I had no clue what a funnel was and then what an automation was, and I never connected the two together. So in a nutshell, what is a funnel and how would it be useful for me in my marketing for a voiceover prospect?

[C]

Okay, so, so that's really, that's a good question. And, and everybody's got a different concept of a funnel. And some people say funnels are, are passe. They're out there. It's not so much a funnel and it's not so much an automation as it is, you've got. Every customer, client prospect is on a journey. That journey is to discover you and then to convert eventually. That's the journey in a nutshell. So that's what you're trying to make them do. You may know nothing about them. And if you take a lot of time to find out everything about every person who gives you their email address, you're going to need an entire department take care of that. You don't have the time. A solopreneur doesn't have that time.

[B]

Right.

[C]

So what you want to do is you want to create criteria that you're going to begin to collect data on so that as they provide the data, show those behaviors, do something, you're beginning to say, ah, oh, e. And eventually they hit that point where they're ready and the ready is what you want to do with them. Do you want to call them whatever that that strategy is. For you, it may just be that they go into a different segment and then they start getting different content. Maybe they become VIP people and they get the discounts, whatever that is. But you, and the point is, you're making a lot of different decisions based upon that thought process where I don't know anything about them, I want to begin to learn about them. So I'm going to send them particular pieces of content and as I do that, I'm learning behaviors. I'm going to ask them and hope that some of them tell me. And that's surveys or games or things of that nature where they take part. Now, as they answer the survey, now, you know exactly what they want, right? You ask them their preferences and they tell you. Or gamification, where you're playing, but depending on what game they play, how they play it, you're like, okay, you know, I know who they are. So you know, you're trying to do different things to get them to give you more information. It's just not, let's tell them about this webinar, let's send it to them and let's just do the next email the next week. What did you get out of that email that you sent with the webinar? If they signed up, doesn't that mean they're interested? If they show up, doesn't that mean they're really interested? Or wouldn't that be hot? Wouldn't that be a funnel?

[B]

You're going down, basically, then a series of emails that are strategized for a certain purpose and they get the first one and if they click on more information or whatever, they get a second one and if they don't click on it, then they get something else in a week. Is it like a flowchart? A flowchart.

[C]

It's like a flowchart. The automation can be branched, rejoined. So, you know, start here, they can go over here or they go over here. Yes, they did this. No, they didn't go down. Oh, they finally did they go back. You know, all these things, you can make it as very complicated or fairly simple in the beginning you want to make it simple because why, you know, you just don't want to make all this work for yourself. As I said, or as I'll say, over and over again, sustainable. If you make your email marketing too difficult, hello, you're never going to complete it. So you have a few simple mechanisms. Automations, life cycles, journeys, drips. They're called different things. Programs, programmatic, they're called a number of different things. But if you're sending people into a preset email campaign with a number of different emails whereby you've strategically thought it out, and at the end there's a story to be told about everybody, you're making your life a lot easier because these, this, this is done and everybody's going through it.

[B]

They don't know they're going through a funnel.

[C]

They're just, they're just getting emails, learning about you at the same time. Here's the thing. Somebody gives you their email address, it's not for free. They're giving it to you because they expect something from you. You had better give it to them. And along with that trust, you've got to give them value. And that value may just be. Come to my webinar. Here's a resource. Get this book discounted, whatever those things are, but you better present them with a value because they, they really, it is an exchange. And if it's all about you and not about them, they're going to realize that it's just like a friendship where in the beginning it's wonderful and at some point in time, it's all about them. Where they want to go, what they want to do, how they want to do it, what they want to wear, what they want to eat. My goodness. And then it's over. The friendship is over. So you do want to share the journey with them while you're collecting information from them, certainly make sure that they're getting things that are meaningful to them. That's your service and your product.

[B]

Okay, that's perfect. Is there anything else you would like to add before we close?

[C]

Email marketing is difficult. If you think somebody has told you that it's a miraculous product, don't believe them. It's work, it pays. And you can provide yourself with the data points that you want because you're the director, you're the one making it up. You just need to sit down, hunker down, and make it happen and make it sustainable.

[B]

Cool. If you'd like to get a hold of Joy, we'll have information in the description below where you can reach her at email and coffee, and she can answer any questions you have. And I know we'll have her back again sometime. I will catch you again next time on the Voiceover Insider podcast. Thank you very much for joining us, and especially to you, Joy. Thank you so much for being here to give us all this information.

[C]

Roger, over and out.

[B]

Julie, everybody, have a blessed one. Bye.

[C]

Bye. Bye.

[A]

We hope you found that information helpful and enjoyable. If you would like to book a free strategy session with Julie Williams to talk about your voiceover career. Just email juliece-overs.com and she'll get you on the schedule. Thanks again for joining us today. We'll catch you soon on another episode of the Voiceover Insider podcast.